Dear Kids,

     If you’ve clicked on ackerson.org lately, you’ll notice a couple of changes. “Check out the new ackerson.org blog” will take you to the family letter, with the latest one on top. Tom set it up for me that way. Of course I’ll still be sending the letter to you in the mail, but if any of your old roommates want to keep up on the family news, they can click there. Or, if you don’t like so much mail in your mailbox, let me know, and I’ll save a stamp that way. Also, Tom has uploaded lots of pictures to the other link, the ackerson.org photo gallery. Then, below that on the home page, are pictures of you kids individually, with your families, and links for your own family pictures. Tom is going to give me instructions to send out to you, so you can upload your latest pictures to your own space. If you have cute pictures you want me to put in my coffee table book (when I get it caught up again), just put them on your page, and I’ll download them and print them. Wow, what fun. “Yes, I love technology . . . “ Thanks, Tom, for taking care of us.
     At the cabin, the pheasant is gone. Boo hoo. I guess he died from inhaling the weed-killer fumes. At least I can work outside now. I just planted two more sections of grass, and I’ve been doing outside molding around the new windows. Dad and I are still on track to start putting up the new siding in July. We have lots of scaffolding, now. In fact, we had to put it up over the garage to do the last two new windows. At one point, dad was balancing a 24' plank over a smaller plank, the wind was blowing, and the whole set of scaffolding started to tip. I climbed down and put a better board under one of the feet. That was the closest to disaster that we’ve come so far. Maybe you all ought to pray that we don’t kill ourselves on this project.
     Trent finished his football season, and they lost their last game. So few guys were there, there were only 4 on the bench at any one time. They were glad they lost, because otherwise they would have had to go back and play Wasatch again. (The ex-BYU players.) Go, Trent. He talks about retiring from football, but it isn’t happening yet.
     Donna is having fun in the Tetons. She’s already had a visit from Bevan (according to Sharon) and she’s been called as Relief Society president. Dave Mickelson is there–he said after the pain of his divorce, he needed to be in the “cleansing Tetons.” He still has the phony southern accent. He and Donna went on a “Sunday stroll.” It wasn’t a hike, Donna said. According to Dave, if you don’t break a sweat, you haven’t broken the Sabbath.
     Last weekend Sharon and Seth went to St. George with Holly and Tim, to see “Joseph” at Tuacahn. They borrowed our van, so they could all ride together, and in St. George, they stayed at the elagant house of Holly and Tim’s friends. Both babies were pretty well behaved. Those kinds of trips get to be impossible when more kids are involved, so that was nice they could do it now.
     If you’ve been to Heber lately, you’ve noticed that John and Heather’s yard is looking really nice! The lawn is planted, and Heather has a nice raised garden. Their white fence, which caused them so many headaches, looks really good. You just have to see it all! John called the other night from Outback Steakhouse, where their family was going to have dinner, because they have a gluten-free menu!
     I visited Grandma last week, and Jeanne came by in her brand new Mini-Cooper. It gets 38 miles to the gallon! She's no longer driving the big SUV, which got 12. Of course she would have to drive the Cooper about a million miles to make up the savings, but it’s pretty spiffy. My brother Mark came by, too, in his brand new 1971 Bronco. He explained that it’s sort of a cult car. The broncos made about that time are really “cool” now, he said. The owners of them stop and talk to each other. Grandpa wasn’t impressed, because to him it’s just an old jeep with lots of rust, but I could see where maybe it was cool.
     Well, now I’ll print out this letter to send you all, and have the fun of uploading it, too. If I get a lot of hits, maybe I can sell advertising, and make money off my “Mom” letter. Just kidding.
     Love, Mom